


tired to death

by sciencemyfiction



Category: Elementary (TV), White Collar
Genre: Abuse survival, Crossover, Depression, Fix-it fic, Gen, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Post-Series, Set in London, complex PTSD, then paris, therapy and healing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 12:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6194533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencemyfiction/pseuds/sciencemyfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Series spoilers for White Collar. Crossover with Elementary will be more obvious in future chapters (I'm still rewatching it to get my head around Joan's character again). </p><p>A series of non-sequential moments following Neal Caffrey's death, and the life he forges for himself in Europe after he's finally freed himself from the shackles of his past. He's not as free or as fit as he'd like to be, but he's working on it. He will fix this. They will fix this. It's just going to take time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. now I'm telling my stories to strangers / when the shadows get long I'll be dead

Necessarily, Neal Caffrey is dead again, eleven years of life celebrated in absentia by people who he will never talk to again, can never let himself be near again. He drags himself across the Atlantic. It takes wit and all the money he had to find his way to England. He lives in the cheapest parts of London by finding dishonest people who need honest work. He does it to pay the bills, and to heal. He still has flashbacks sometimes: fire and heat on his back, falling. Guns to his face, guns to his face. Guns to his back, guns to his chest. 

Most vivid are the dreams: the ones where he really did die, gasping in that sewer, he really took a bullet and Keller really did get him. Those feel like drowning in his own blood, waking up breathing hard, feeling shaky and pale and checking his chest to be sure he isn't shot. 

You're not supposed to watch yourself die, certainly not to pay attention to what happens when you're dead. He remembers learning that lesson years ago, remembers trying to talk Sara out of feeling the finite nature of her own existence. But sometimes that dread can't be chased off, and he's weak still, he wants to reach out, still. He knows he shouldn't-- no,  _can't_ \-- but he still watches for news. It's not like they're quiet about it: busting the Pink Panthers is big. Neal Caffrey's death is a very small piece of that, though, and maybe fortunately, Neal doesn't have to see Peter's sour face at losing his best asset, or feel Mozzie clawing at him angrily for leaving Mozzie behind. 

Sometimes, Keller's there in the room, because Neal knows that it was his fault Keller died. Neal planned the whole thing, he had to. Had to bank on Keller attacking him, fighting for the gun-- running, not staying with Neal, no matter how much he might've liked to lean on Neal-- and ultimately getting in a showdown with Peter Burke. 

Neal made a lot of choices that day, and one of them was: Peter Burke, or Matthew Keller? 

"Did he really deserve it, though?" Keller's face asks him over his shoulder in the mirror. It gets harder to remember what exactly he looked like, every day, but he always sounds the same. "Burke, I mean. You let him live, you let me die. Why the hell'd you pick him over me, Caffrey?"

"Because," he needs to say this for himself, again, though he's said it before. "his wife was pregnant. And he wasn't a killer."

"But he was," Keller laughs, walking out of the mirror, fading from Neal's memory and sight again. "He killed Adler. What, you buy into that? It's okay when a cop does it, huh?"

This is why Neal lives alone in his tiny flat, and walks everywhere, and tries to keep his impact to a minimum. He's not  _okay_ , or even fine. He's as shook up by his own death as anybody. (Not that he suspects everybody's all that shook up. Better not to know, though, better not to know. Neal Caffrey's name lives on with an honorable mention for his sacrifice helping bring down the Panthers, but the media still paints him a criminal. Speculation is he died trying to escape. Maybe Neal Caffrey started the fight that got him shot. It's ugly, it's better not to read the internet articles or the Daily Sun. He does it anyway. Luckily, the Sun doesn't give much of a shit about what some dead con-man from the USA was up to, nor even the FBI. Neal quickly gets himself good and buried in local gossip. It helps, a little.)

He doesn't know how to feel, WHAT he feels, about Keller being dead, or Peter being a killer. Frequently throughout every day, some part of Neal has this impulse:  _I should call Mozzie._ Or  _I should find a way to tell Peter._  

There's backups in place. They'll find out eventually. That's what he tells himself, and it's hard, because sometimes Neal catches himself halfway through the motions of picking up a phone and dialing, or writing a letter, or checking for the soonest flight back to Manhattan. 

He develops a habit to stop himself, sharply grabs his right hand in his left and stabs his left thumb into the meat between his palm and his right thumb until it hurts so bad he can't concentrate. All the while, in the minutes it takes to completely override the impulse, Neal tells himself under his breath, firmly,  _No._

So it becomes a conversation with himself:

_I have to let Elizabeth know she shouldn't name her son after me._

And he pushes his thumbnail in so hard it breaks the skin.  _Why do you know what she's naming her son? No._

_Maybe I should just let Mozzie know so he's okay._

He makes himself look at his single wine bottle.  _No. He did fine before he met you. He'll adapt._

 _What if Peter's hurting_?

That's the most difficult one, and it sends him into spirals sometimes, sends him into a very dark place where he paces and wants to run, wants to flee back to New York. He starts being scared because the anklet's off, no weight, no safety, he sees phantom guns, he imagines all the times he was off-anklet and what that eventually meant. People shot in the chest, barely an arm's length from where he stood. Being tasered, being threatened. Being beaten, being drugged. Everything compounds into this awful nausea, paralytic and completely impossible to shake, and Neal makes himself breathe through his nose, and bruises his hand if that's what it takes, until the panic attack subsides enough for him to remember that he must answer himself.

_What if Peter's hurting?_

And he tells himself: _No._

_What if--_

_No._ Neal spends many, many nights, days, dawns, dusks and afternoons, curled in a corner and answering this question.  _No. No. No. No more what-ifs. No more sympathy._

But sometimes, Neal slips and he can't stop himself. And that's what the Bordeaux is about. That's a year, free. That's a year, knowing Peter might be suffering so much guilt and it's all Neal's fault. And Neal is lonely, and freshly paid off of a surprisingly lucrative, legitimate job, and he is weak, so weak in that moment.

He catches himself too late, too late because he's already had the wine sent to Peter, but he still does it, to keep the habit, to strengthen it, to relearn and rebuild himself. 

He jabs his thumb into his still-bruised hand.

_No. Peter doesn't need me. He never did._

Right now, though, he's weak and he's hurting. And he finds himself hoping that the breadcrumb will lead Peter to the truth, even if it's a terrible risk. 

_What if Peter's hurting?_

In this moment, this low moment, Neal needs to believe that that pain can be fixed. Later, he will be grateful for the victory of not following up on the package, just letting it go. For now, he fantasizes about Peter's reaction: he'd figure it all out, realize everything for sure. For a moment, happiness, joy even, to know that Neal was alive. Then the inevitable rage would descend as Peter realized the full implications of this reality. Peter would be furious that Neal had engineered a situation where Peter would likely kill someone-- even if it was ultimately Peter's decision to take the shot. And he would never forgive Neal for running away again, for daring to take his freedom. He would be angry that Neal had helped Mozzie steal the money, and unwilling to let it go. Elizabeth would be on Peter's side, like always. Mozzie would somehow end up losing the money and need Neal to do another job. Again. The baby's namesake would become a bitter reminder of how much Peter hated Neal's unwillingness to abide by the law-- a cruel joke, a gift bestowed on an unwilling and unknowing innocent by Peter and Elizabeth in their grief. 

When he realizes he's driven himself to silent, miserable tears, Neal bites his lip and makes himself go for a long, long walk to clear his head. He tries to chase it all away, but no matter how he tries, the disappointed, furious scowl of Peter looming over him lingers. He feels like a man haunted, distraught and dazed, and very nearly walks headlong into a car before a small, strong hand catches his shoulder and pulls him back. It is a firm grip, a hand not much smaller than his own, but with finely kept nails and a faint perfume associated. 

"Watch out," says the woman, her dark eyes worried for him, penetrating in their gaze. "You could hurt yourself, if you're not careful."

Neal thinks she must mean the cars, at first, but she takes his hands, and separates them. Only when he's forced to do so does he realize how painful it was. His right thumb is swollen red and purple from the pressure he'd put on it. Did he break his own thumb? 

"Can you hear me?" She is looking up into his face now, checking him for signs of drug use, maybe, or to see if he's a familiar face, perhaps. 

"Sorry, I didn't realize," Neal mumbles. His own voice feels like it is small and far away, and she raises an eyebrow at him, clearly not hearing him well enough to make out his meaning. 

He doesn't have it in him to try again. She won't let go of his hands, now that she's separated them, and instead gently squeezes them, leading him with her. 

"What?"

"Let's get some coffee," she says, and he's so surprised to realize that her accent really is American and she really did just say  _coffee_ even though they're in the middle of Chelsea that he doesn't think to argue her suggestion. "Okay?"

"Um, yeah," he agrees. 

It is one of the better things that has happened to Neal. And later, he will think back on this moment often, and eventually come to the conclusion that Joan Watson saved his life.

 


	2. when you press me to your heart / I'm in a world apart

There's a letter in his pocket, folded many times, carefully cherished, that smells faintly of wet dog. It's all he has left of June.  

"You're a lot like her," Neal says. Today marks the third time they've tried to meet for coffee. 

"June rescued you too, huh?" Joan teases.

It's a brilliant blue day, cold as hell and slippery with ice, and Neal is bundled in three layers yet still shivering. Joan sits archly in her iron-wrought chair on the patio of the cafe, with a fur hat and a thick wool coat, and her hair spills down her shoulders like shining ink. She is radiant, glowing in the light of midday. She is an angular angel, sharp and lean in contrast to the soft and round fullness of June's hair, her figure, her lips in a smile. Joan does not sing. Joan has no ex-husband. Joan is a fantastic listener, and Neal is afraid to tell her much of anything. Their first coffee date was tumultuous and he barely remembers what happened after the initial shock of her hand, dragging him out of his tailspin at the literal last moment of return. The second effort was interrupted. Neal thought he saw Keller, went to the bathroom to calm down, and couldn't return for several hours. Understandably Joan was no longer there when he managed it at last.  

But she did accept his texts of apology. Told him,  _third time's a charm, you know_ , and so here they are. 

There is an infinitesimal chance Neal might run into Sara while he is here in London. He's terrified that she'll find him, spot him. He's not ready for that, not ready to figure out what to say or whether he could take it, take her telling him she needed to leave him behind a second time. Last time was hard enough. Losing Kate, Sara, then Rebecca again after her? Neal is done with that kind of love, and he doesn't want any part of that past because it brings with it immeasurable heartbreak. 

"Neal?" 

"Sorry," Neal startles out of his reverie, and warms his gloved fingers on his coffee mug, looking over the royal beauty of Joan's face again before he agrees with her. "It's true."

"Hah!"

He adds hastily, "She was nothing much like you, really. You've just got that same...I guess. Presence?"

"Well, I'll have to take your word for it." Joan says, smiling wryly. It's exhilarating and strange to realize she is comfortable with taking his word for anything. She didn't say it like she hates him for relaying information second-hand, like she's already calculating how many potential lies he might be feeding her through his filter. The possibilities of what he could tell her before stretching her trust seem endless. 

"Well, June was a dancer. Pretty young thing. We had a torrid affair, she saved my life from some gangsters. The rest is history," Neal lies, effortlessly, in a rush, because he can. 

Because Joan won't know if it's a lie or not, and something about that lights Neal on fire.

He stops himself, feeling a flutter of anxiety. See, it matters to him that Joan will trust what he tells her and Neal falters. Losing that again, that would be painful. He looks down into his mug, at the milk swirling in his coffee, and thinks of fractal antennae and missing U-boats, and bites his lip. 

"No, but really-- June did save me. I- I was- I had nothing. I was so low, and she just walked into my life. I was- it was a bad time, right after a really- bad time. And she was like the clouds parting. She was trying to let go of her husband, Byron, and-- he and I were almost the same cut, you know? Not the same man, but she was donating his clothes to a thrift shop. And-- there I was, it was a perfect fit. Here's June, with a Byron-shaped hole in her life, and I walked up, needing a life to-- to belong to, to be a part of. And she let me be a part of that." 

Joan reaches out and puts a hand on his unbruised left one, squeezing lightly to reassure him, he thinks. It's deliberate, too, she must remember the bruising on the right. It bothers Neal a little bit that he remembers less of that day than she does, but he'll live with it. He can appreciate the gesture for its implied intent, either way.

They could pry into each other's lives from here, reasonably, but Joan says, 

"I can tell you really miss her, now. I don't know if I can offer you as much as she did--" Her smile is a small, kind thing, and it is warmth in the dead of the cold around them. He takes heart from that smile. "But I'd like to help you."

She doesn't say,  _I'd like to be your friend._ Not exactly. He hears it in the tone of her voice, just the same. He wants to believe that it's true. 

Neal has an inkling of what she's implying, if not certainty that he is reading her right. Asking for help is difficult, might be one of the most difficult things he's ever been tasked with doing. Instead, Joan is offering help without making him ask for it first. It takes everything Neal has, most days, to adhere to his goals: keep no contact with his old life; allow no relapses; pursue no crime whatsoever if he can help it. He doesn't want to be held at gunpoint again for the rest of his life, and Neal is convinced by now that the only way to ensure his own safety is to stay as far away from his prior skill-set as possible. 

Joan hasn't told him much about who she is or what she does, beyond saying she used to work in medicine, just like Neal told her he used to work for an accounting firm. He thinks, first, that he must assume she is possibly stretching the truth. After all, Neal only worked at that firm undercover for a couple of weeks. What's to say she isn't doing some similar sculpting of the truth? While he's still turning over how much his assumption is right, or wrong, he asks her, "How do you mean?" 

"How would I help you?"

"Yeah." Neal is scared to even jokingly accept the offer, if he's honest with himself. Probably, that says something about how bad off he is, how much he actually needs what she's willing to give him. He doesn't want to read much into it. "I mean-- you've already helped me a lot. And-- you know, professional help, it costs a lot of money I don't have."

Joan gives him a much-suffered look. "Maybe leave the professional price calculations to me, then. It doesn't have to cost you anything. You  _need_ help, and I'm here, right now. Seems like a no-brainer to me."

His stomach is full of butterflies, and Neal tries to silence them, dapple their wings with a deep sip of coffee. It helps a little. It reminds him, too, that he hasn't eaten in a couple of days. Trouble is, it's hard to eat when you're not hungry. England doesn't help, the food he can buy cheap here is worse than burgers back in the states. More often than not, the thought of consuming anything non-liquid makes him queasy. Right now, too, Neal doesn't have the kind of money he would need to transform his meals into something more appropriately palatable. He tells himself that's the only reason he's starving.

"Neal?" Joan's voice is close, but she's only leaned in, not moved to whisper to his ear. It feels like the latter. His clenches his jaw against this disorienting incongruity, head spinning, and nods slowly to let her know he hears her. "Something wrong?"

"No," he says, and he's too weary to lie to her. It's too much work, for once. "It's just. It-- help, I mean, admitting I need help, that's difficult. You're practically a stranger."

In Joan's eyes there is a calculating look, as if she is working some fascinating puzzle out. But she isn't staring at Neal-- he's not the thing she's trying to solve. Instead, she deflects. "Even though I remind you of June?"

"Yeah," Neal agrees, looking down into his mug again to strengthen his resolve. It's hard to watch her. She looks pristine and powerful, enshrined in the halo of sunshine opposite him. Is it warmer there, he wonders. 

But no, that seems about right-- that Neal Caffrey should be sitting in the shadows. There's some dark feeling rattling around in his chest, some echo of Peter's voice telling him _you can't change_ and some small part of Neal believes it. That queasy feeling is so unbearable, and his heart starts pounding, and he just knows he's got to stop this aimless, panicky feeling but he can't pinpoint how--

Joan reaches into his personal space and pinches his ear, sharply, suddenly, startling him. 

Boggled, Neal can't think of any other reaction than,

"Ow!" 

"Yeah!" Joan says fiercely, putting her hands on the table now. "That's right, ow! Tell whatever you were thinking to shut up, okay?"

This does not clear Neal's confusion, but it does redirect his thoughts. "What?" 

"You heard me. Drop those thoughts. _Dissipate_ them. Okay?" 

It's fortunate that their table is not in a position to draw a lot of attention from passers-by. All around them the foot-traffic is shoulder-to-shoulder, flowing over the streets, people driven by the cold to walk quickly instead of linger and stare. Though his nerves are frayed and his heart is still beating like a drum, Neal realizes that none of the people walking past them have taken notice of the exchange here at the table. That works for him, somehow, eases the small cool fear that had been tugging at him. Now Neal is just thinking about Joan and not about how much better and uncorrupted she is than himself. He remains somewhat at a loss, trying to figure out what she's talking about, but he is still with her and not his prior panic. "I- I don't--?"

"Look," Joan's voice is soft but there is a hidden strength in it. When she makes eye contact with him this time, it feels like he's doing a trust fall. It's hard at first, but then staring back at her-- meeting her gaze-- abruptly seems easier and all in a rush, Neal realizes he doesn't have to be scared of Joan. His eyes sting a little, it's so damn cold out. He tells himself that's the reason why, anyway.

"Okay, I'm looking."

"I saw the way you started drifting, there. It's subtle, but you stopped moving almost at all, and that's not  _you_."

Part of him wants to question her. How does she know what's out of character for him or not? Is she bullshitting him? Is she stalling him while Interpol closes in, or something? Is she a stalker, is she an assassin, is she a journalist in disguise about to out him to the press?

But whether any of those things are true or not, she _is_ right. 

So Neal listens.

Joan sighs through her nose, and continues when he doesn't interrupt her, gentle in her body language, her tone. "I don't know what you were thinking about there, but I know it wasn't good."

Neal agrees, softly. "It wasn't."

"Look, you barely know me. It's okay not to want to talk about whatever's going on."

"Yeah?" He laughs. He wants to say, _news to me!_ but Joan isn't Peter.

"Yeah! But... I also get the impression you don't have many people to talk to right now. So maybe even a relative stranger is better than going back to that place you were when we met, huh?"

It's the understatement of the year, though he doubts Joan knows the half of it. Neal has been working hard to make sure that 'relative stranger' is all he seems to be to anybody he interacts with, these days. Joan's the first person he's met with outside of doing contract jobs in the last six months, and even this-- a third attempt at a terrible coffee date-- is still very stilted, his own hesitation hindering whatever natural rapport they might have. Now, Neal didn't like prison. Didn't like the colors, muted and gray except the accusatory orange screaming  _criminal criminal criminal_ on his and the other inmates' jumpsuits. Didn't like being kept in a single cell and frequently isolated. People person, with no people to talk to-- no, Neal didn't like prison. Neal broke in prison. He has to tell himself it was the right decision, what he did-- begging his way into Peter's custody, into a different kind of prison with less predictability, with more room to hurt. And if Peter could ask him now, and Neal could be honest, he would admit it:  _yes, I thought I could outsmart you, slip through your fingers in a couple of months and go back to living my life._

But he doesn't know if he can be honest. Not with anybody, not even with himself. 

He wants Joan to like him so, so badly. He wants her to be someone he can visit every so often, bring cookies to, invite to a museum. 

"Joan, I-- I don't know if you--"  Neal is going to lie if he keeps talking, so he is grateful when Joan lifts a hand to interrupt him before he continues. 

"You don't have to decide right now. You don't have to tell me anything about yourself that you don't want to, or do anything you don't want to do." Joan sits back in her chair, hands folded in her lap, and shrugs. She is keeping her body language open for discussion, while absolving Neal of the participation requirement. "Think about it for a while. And decide _what_ you want to do, when you feel ready to decide. But know, also, that I am here for you, and I am not gonna judge. Whatever you're fighting, Neal, that's a hard battle to fight alone. I help people break addictions for a living. And I think you deserve a little help, to get you through this. If I'm not the right person to be that help, that's okay. I just want you to know that someone is on your side."

It feels as though he has been holding his breath forever when he finally lets himself relax, his lungs aching, his eyes stinging sharper now. His voice is shaky, so're his lips, but he manages a smile at her, and then hides behind his coffee. 

"Good coffee?" Joan teases, and Neal laughs, shedding that heavy, dark feeling that was lingering on him. The sunlight shifts, and he does feel a little less icy in the brunt of it.

"Mm-hmm, yup. Words don't do it justice. I didn't know there were any decent coffee places for miles. You're my  _hero_."

"You're a terrible liar." Joan has a good, strong smile. 


	3. under the city lies a heart made of ground / but the humans will give no love

Joan suggested he write a letter to Peter. Not to send, just to get it off his chest. She also pointed Neal in the direction of an anonymous site. 'For venting', she'd said. It's some kind of forum where victims of abuse go to chat sometimes, offering support to each other, all anonymous and untracked. Not, of course, that Neal would be able to tell if someone was tracing the activity on such a site, or saving logs of it for evidence.

He stares at the screen, intimidated. 

One of Neal Caffrey's greatest secrets is that he missed out on computers. During that boom of technology, that point at which most people around him began taking computers more seriously and using the internet in earnest, in every day life, for all kinds of things that were previously impossible, Neal was locked away. When it comes up, if it comes up, he pretends it's just disdain. Most of the FBI agents he worked with had thought so little of him that it was an easy lie, a simple trick to pretend that computers and technology were not of interest to an art thief. He told Peter that such things were not valuable to a man like Neal Caffrey because they were not beautiful, had no class, had no history just yet. He called them kid stuff because Peter was old enough to feel similarly about the new and unfamiliar.

The truth is much more embarrassing: coming out of prison Neal had found the internet much changed from what he remembered, computers faster and more esoteric than they'd ever been in his experience. He'd felt glaringly his lack of skill and understood at once that until he had time to sit down and learn them, he was not going to be good at them. And while working for the FBI, he really hadn't had the time to learn. It was only luck that Peter'd never found out the real reasons behind Neal's lack of expertise.    

But computer screens feel sort of accusatory to him now. They're interactive, they stare back. Too much about his past situation is extremely specific, unshareable. For all he knows there could be some datamining code set up on the FBI's end, monitoring all known sites on the internet for keywords he wouldn't even know not to say. Neal has been found by Peter halfway across the world before, and all it took was a phone call.

By now, Peter has found the Bordeaux, had time to be happy, had time to get mad. If Peter wants to find Neal he is going to do it. He does not need help.

Neal closes his browser, and switches off the wireless settings on the computer in a bit of paranoia. Hands shaking again, he gets to his feet, paces the room. He makes himself a cup of coffee, pours it out, goes to bed. Maybe next time he'll manage to write something before he loses his nerve. This is the furthest he's gotten with Joan's ideas, and it doesn't feel like a victory, but it has to be something. He got all the way to the website this time. It was hard even turning on wireless connection at first. 

Little things, little bits of progress. 

In the morning there's a knock at his door, insistent and forceful. He jerks up out of a dead sleep, panicked, and it takes another knock and a woman's voice before he realizes it's not Peter, it's not Peter, he never posted the things he was dreaming of saying online and Peter has not found him, everything is okay or as okay as it can be. By the time he's dressed the woman is agitated and starts calling him unflattering things; he apologizes and accepts the package she was delivering before he's really processed that there is a package for him, somehow, at his no-name address, and Neal has no memory of ordering anything that would need to be delivered to him in the first place. 

He sets the box down on his table and immediately gets dressed, harried, half afraid the package will explode and half afraid it is a listening device or a cell phone or some other subtle way of telling him that Peter knows and is watching. Is it paranoia if he's justified to think these things? Peter's job was stalking Neal, for almost a dozen years. Neal is used to being stalked, and that's what this feels like. He doesn't approach the package again until he's fully dressed, socks, shoes, a suit he hasn't worn since moving here. It's silly and would make no sense to anyone else but after living with June and working with the FBI these suits, for Neal, became armor. 

The package is labeled only ' _Friend of my Friend_ ' and the handwriting is very odd. Neal feels uneasy looking at it too closely, and debates the merits of simply throwing the whole thing away unopened. Maybe he should throw it in the tub first, just in case it is a listening device after all. Maybe he needs to move again. Maybe it's nothing, maybe he's overreacting. It wouldn't make a difference to open the package before disposing of it, would it?

Neal gets a knife from his under-stocked kitchen, trying to breathe slow and even. In there, he catches the smell of someone else cooking on a floor above his, soft sweet smell of a pie underneath something more savory. Chili? Either way, it makes him feel a little dizzy. Three days, since he last managed to eat something solid. He really should try to eat something today. That's a good excuse, so Neal sets the knife aside, shucks the suit, changes into his unassuming ordinary clothes, his work-clothes, and heads out of the apartment, leaving the package untouched on his table.

He goes to work, buys himself a cheap lunch, some curry from the one place he's been able to feel at home since moving out here. Priya is a very nice older lady, and her cooking is better than he could hope to make for himself, at the moment. For a day, Neal is just a person, an unassuming person who feels a little less frayed at the edges. He even has a second meal, much smaller than the first, cobbled together from a bag of chips and a pear one of his coworkers didn't want. Right now, Neal is a mechanic. No artistry is needed to locate the broken pieces in the vehicles that roll in, air up tires, change oil. It's messy and always busy and after closing at six he washes his hands four times, wipes down his face and neck to get the worst of the sweat off, and wanders his way back to Chelsea proper. Maybe-on-purpose he passes by the coffee place Joan took him to, hoping to run into her there. With food in him and time, he's come to suspect that 'friend-of-a-friend' is someone Joan knows, because there really isn't anyone else out here he'd think of as a friend. Maybe he should be scared or angry that she has told someone about him, but it would be a relief to know the package's source is probably non-hostile. Mostly, Neal is warming up to the idea that maybe he can have a friend, maybe he is allowed this small good thing, even though he is a bad person. 

Unfortunately, Joan is not there. 

Neal orders a coffee anyway, and then sits outside to drink it. It's not really to Neal's taste, too thin and over-sweetened. If he were being gracious he would call it 'less than ideal', but for the moment he's content to revel in how saccharine and unpleasant it is. Joan had, previously, suggested this place was more like a port in a storm than an honest to goodness cafe, after he got on her case about it. Now, though, Neal has a hard time believing anybody could recommend this place in good conscience. He makes himself drink it because he did spend the money, but melodramatically regrets every second. Almost, he can laugh at the thought of Joan wrinkling her nose and having a cup alongside him. He wishes she were here so they could complain about it together. He thinks it'd be nice. Maybe she'd dare him to try to finish two cups, and they could each be mock-offended at the other for dragging them back to this tasteless place. It's sugary, true, but in a way the stuff grows on him, a little bit. Would Joan feel the same?

Unbidden, the thought comes to him that Peter would have hated this coffee. 

All comedy he'd managed to find in this imagined scenario drains out of him, and it's hard to finish the dregs of his cup. It takes him three sips to get there and then, Neal has no choice but to go home. He does so doggedly, trying to think of nothing at all.

The walk back is mired with other people. Winter is thick and frosty all around, heavy on the air and harsh on the world, but not many people seem deterred by the chill. It isn't easy, working his way through the press of so many bodies. He feels packed in. Small. Vulnerable. Even though Joan has suggested several other coping mechanisms, the easiest one is pain, bruising his right hand again. He knows it's not the crowds themselves that unnerve him, so much as the uncertainty of whether these crowds are laced with people preparing to bring him in again. It's hard to breathe, harder to think. 

By some miracle, Neal makes it back still relatively whole, full of energy and feeling strong enough to confront whatever it is that lies within the mystery package. He braces himself, picks up the knife again, and cuts the packing tape. This time, he doesn't lose his nerve.  _Just like the forums. Baby steps._ Eventually he'll be able to write that letter, maybe. Just not today. 

Inside the box is a small tub of honey, and a set of paints and brushes. They are cheap brushes, store-bought paints, not the kind of thing Neal would usually use, but the honey is something else-- the label says it is from a type of bee Neal has never heard of that seems to have been named after Joan. He doesn't know what to make of it all. Underneath the rest he finds a note. 

' _You have found the best of friends in Watson. Can relate to your current situation, and strongly encourage you to stop punishing yourself. Does not fix past mistakes or improve future outcomes, really._

_We must always strive to better ourselves, but when we are injured that betterment can take the form of healing. Permit this for yourself. (Or if not yourself, for Watson. Does talk about you often.)_

_-S._ '

Neal doesn't have any canvas to paint on right now, has made a point of keeping his living space crushingly bare and desolately undecorated. The package itself, the shipping box in which the gifts arrived, however, is wrapped in brown packing paper, and the dimensions of working within the box seem appealing to him. He opens the paints, tests out the brushes until he finds two that will work for this plan, and begins to decorate the inside of the box from its floor up its walls to its open leaves. There is something so comfortable about working within this limited space, even while he cramps his hands and stands hunched awkwardly over the table to reach the inside corners of the packing box. He paints the crawling unease that seems to follow him everywhere he goes, the nostalgia that tries to drag him back to where he was, silhouettes of familiar faces, outlines of signs and shops, replicas in caricature of the two-mile radius that used to be his world. He paints the distant skyline of Manhattan on the inside of the box's leaves, golden and glittering like a promise. 

He runs out of paint before he's done, and has to laugh at himself, at how caution is nothing for a few precious moments, at how he wants to run down to the local market and pick up more. Did he  _know_ that he knew where to find every pigment he needs and doesn't have here, or did that information just slide into his subconscious after the last year without his meaning it to do so? Neal can't be sure, and for now he doesn't worry about it. It's close enough, it's almost finished. It feels good. It feels good! 

His fingers are encrusted in acryllic and his back is sore from stooping down. The whole apartment smells like paint, so he opens a window. 

Fifteen months since the last time he felt like himself. It doesn't last; when morning comes he wants to hide the box forever, and stuffs the remaining paint and brushes into his closet so they can be concealed. But while it's there, it's good. It's the best night he's had in a long, long while. 

He calls Joan. 

"Remember what we talked about at coffee? The third time, I mean."

"Yeah, of course. Is everything okay? You sound exhausted."

He doesn't tell Joan he spent the morning fretting and frantically checking the apartment for bugs. That would sound bad. Neal wants to sound better, not worse. 

"I am. I-- yesterday I painted something. Um, someone sent me paints. I think they know you?"

" _Sherlock,_ " Joan hisses through the phone, with so much mingled affection and fury that Neal can tell they're _that_ kind of friend. They piss each other off, get in each other's hair, and would die for each other, most likely- or at the very least, Joan seems to feel that way toward Sherlock. Having been the recipient of a similar sort that turned out one-sided on more than one occasion, Neal can only hope Joan's luckier and that her friend is a true one.

That's still a sore spot. He misses and doesn't miss Mozzie. He's mad and not-mad about it. It's a strange and frustrating subject.

"I am.  _So_ sorry. What did he do, did he-- I can't believe he did that to you. Are you okay, was he rude?"

"No. I mean. Yes? I'm okay, he didn't deliver it himself. It wasn't rude, but-- so I painted something, and I'm just. Tired today. That's all."

Is he lying? 

"You're sure?" Joan just sounds concerned, not suspicious. Neal is suspicious enough for both of them. When he examines himself, though, he finds that no-- he's not lying. That's really all it is. Not in so many words as the full detail, but it's the truth. 

"I'm sure."

"Well, good." Joan's voice seems like she's smiling to herself. "I can't really imagine Neal Caffrey without art. I'm glad you made something."

He feels himself freezing up, getting ready to bolt. How long would it take to flee Chelsea and get across the channel to France by train? Because Neal has not mentioned his surname or his sordid history to Joan, not in any details explicit enough to make it known. So despite that, she does know. All the fears he'd been struggling with before about hidden FBI agents or Interpol are bubbling up again, and his throat is feeling tight. Nerves. Only, she does sound like she's smiling, doesn't she? Joan knows, yes, but doesn't disapprove. 

And doesn't hang up. 

"Can you imagine him without friends?" He asks, and he doesn't like how his voice wavers a little bit, too desperate, he didn't mean to be so open about that. 

"No way."

Neal breathes, and Joan tells him she wants to see it, the thing he painted. He's not ready for that yet, but baby steps. 

One day, he will be.


End file.
